


The Task of the Labyrinth

by Lenaa412



Category: Original Work
Genre: Adventure, Brother, Gen, Grief, maze, task, walls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-03
Updated: 2020-02-03
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:02:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22548235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lenaa412/pseuds/Lenaa412
Summary: She has to find her way out of the labyrinth, but not everything is what it seems.





	The Task of the Labyrinth

She was staring at the giant pair of metal doors that would open any minute, giving her the free path into the labyrinth. There was nothing else here with her, she was in a spacious room, a door camouflaging into the wall behind me. The whole place was white, dirty white, except for the grey metal doors ahead of her.

A deep sound echoed through the room, and the doors parted, revealing a dark stone path ahead of her, with tall, stone walls surrounding her from the two sides. Glancing back to the hidden door, she stepped forward, and as soon as she did, the doors started to close behind her.

No other way than forward.

The only noise was her boots stepping on the stone, and the crunch of the broken pieces. After a moment, a rush of breeze came from there left and moved her hair off her shoulder. I should have tied it up, she thought. She looked in her pockets, remembering she had a band somewhere with which she tied hair up into a ponytail.

She considered going to the right, away from the cool breeze, and she took a step, but turned her head and changed her direction in the last minute and headed to where the breeze came from.

She did not know her task here, they didn’t tell her. They only told her she needs to go in, and the labyrinth will direct her. That was one reason why she headed left, the direction from where the breeze came from, and not away from it.

She followed the breeze until she came to a crossroad of right, ahead and left. The breeze stopped here, and she looked at her choice of paths, unsure how to continue.

She closed her eyes and listened. Listened to any sounds, anything that could give her a clue where to go or where not to go, but there was nothing. The breeze died down, so the hush disappeared with it, she was standing so the crunch of the stone was not sounding. Still keeping her eyes closed, she hoped for a sound, any sound, any clue that would help direct her in the maze.

When she was about to give up and head straight, a sound, a voice came from the right. A voice she had not heard for so long, she had almost forgotten how it sounded. It was faint, but she could make it out in the eerie silence.

Her eyes shot open, and she practically darted to the right. She started running until she came to another crossroad. Right or ahead?

She let out a shout, a shout of the person’s name. It sounded foreign on her tongue, but she waited to hear if an answer came.

The voice came from the right, but she expected it to come from ahead and she snapped her head in the direction from where she heard her name, louder this time.

While she ran, she shouted the name again, and again, every time she came to a crossroad. She followed the sound until when she turned left then right because that was the only option, but she arrived at a dead end.

“Christian!” She shouted, turning.

“Lauren?” The voice came straight from behind the wall. She put a hand on it, the stone-cold under her hand. She looked up and around, but the wall was too high to climb.

“Christian!” She shouted again while listening to his weakening. Searching for a way to get through the wall, she assured him that she’ll get to him.

Towards the bottom of the wall, on the right, she saw a stone slightly inwards compared to the others. She crouched down in front of it and ran her fingers across it to make sure it was real and not just a shadow cast by the dim light and the rubble around.

She then had a thought, an idea, and she pushed the stone in. At first, nothing happened, but she was determined to prove herself right. She pushed it in harder, giving it her full power and when it finally slid inwards in the socket and the wall started to rumble, she stood up and dusted herself off, while not taking her eyes off the wall, and readying herself to whatever might be behind it.

When the wall stopped rumbling, it left a small opening on the right, between the wall it was connected to and itself, wide enough so that one person could fit through sideways. Palming her knife in the holster, she stepped forward and peeked around the wall.

When she saw nothing, she still stepped on the newly discovered path and looked around. Shouting his name again, into the air, she waited for an answer once again.

But none came.

She shouted again, panicked now, and again, and again, feeling she failed. The place was a large room, with the only opening being the one she came through.

When she started accepting she might have been diluted, the girl stepped towards the opening, but she found it closed. In her panicked shouting and searching for Christian, she did not notice that the only exit closed.

But only when she looked around at this moment did she notice that for has started to settle, seemingly from nowhere. It was – it felt like – regular fog, but she had a feeling there was more to it.

Turning to face the centre of the room, she waited for the fog to settle or to reveal something. She was hoping it would be Christian. This was the place, she was sure of it. She heard him through the wall, which hid this place, there was no question about it.

But then, where was he?

When the fog was so thick she didn’t see her extended hands or her feet, panic started to build up in her again. Closing her eyes and taking deep breaths, she tried to call herself. This is just the maze. This is just the maze, she told herself. This is not real. This is just the maze. Concentrate.

When she opened her eyes again, she saw something through the fog. There was no shape to it, at least not something she could have recognised. Even though a little voice in the far end of her mind to her otherwise, she took a step towards the shape. As she did, it started to clear out, the fog began to lift.

Her eyes lit up when she recognised it. It was him. It was really him.

She ran to him, ready to pull him into a tight embrace. His arms were extended, prepared for the embrace, but as she got closer, his form started to fade. She stopped right before him, her hand inches away from his faded one.

She looked up at him, into his icy blue eyes, now filled with hope and happiness. For a moment, she thought he reflected what she was feeling, but a piercing feeling didn’t leave her chest.

She looked down to her hand, to his hand, reaching for hers, stopping when their fingertips entwined, but she didn’t feel it. She looked up to him again, the emotions in his eyes not fading as he did – completely – leaving her between the stone walls.

Her hand remained extended, and her eyes remained fixated, where he had been, even moments after he disappeared. Then she lowered her hand when the wall before her, started to rumble and sink into the ground, revealing Christian behind it.

Shock settled on her face. He was standing there, right in front of her, in his full form, the same stunned expression on his face too.

He took a step towards her, but she was faster and threw her arms around him before he could finish his step. He drew her closer to him, caressing her hair. He said nothing just comforted her, and now that was completely enough for her.

Then she lifted her head and said the three words that she ached to speak to him though it was not possible, “I miss you.”

He sighed, but it wasn’t an annoyed sigh. It was a comforting one, a relieved one. It was a silent answer, which the girl fully understood.

He missed her too.

“Please come back,” she pled, clinging to his jacket.

His face darkened with sadness as he looked down at her. “You know that’s not possible.”

“Please!” The word wasn’t more than a whisper.

“Lauren.” He mused, but she didn’t look at him. “You have to let me go.”

She knew he didn’t mean physically, but she shook her head. “I can’t.”

“Lauren. You have to.” He held her shoulders. “I will be with you always. But you have to let me go.” He drew her into another hug and caressed her hair. “That’s the only way to move forward.”

She knew he was right, but she couldn’t bring herself to comply. She couldn’t. It felt to her like she was betraying him by doing that, throwing his memory away. But deep down, she knew she had to do it.

Sighing, she stepped back, only holding each other in their hands. She looked at him one last time, and he smiled at her one last time before she said the words, “Game over.”

Her surroundings started to fade, starting with the walls, then the rubble and the ground and finally him. She looked at him as long as she could before he disappeared too into the whiteness. She wanted his smile to be the very last thing she saw, she wanted that to be her last memory of him even if it was her mind’s creation.

The complete whiteness then faded into total darkness and the audio of the white room came back. The beep of the heart monitor, the click of the mouse, the tap of the keyboard and the blink of the command on the computer.

She took the glasses off and waited for her eyes to adjust to the light in the room. Then she looked at the woman standing next to the chair she sat in, smiling.

“It’s ready,” she confirmed, and Lauren looked ahead. “The only thing we need is a title.”

For a moment, nothing came to her mind, but the next too many ideas were fighting in her head to be the ones. One particular stood out, and she knew that was the one.

“Let’s name it,” she paused for a heartbeat, “The Task of the Labyrinth.”


End file.
